The party ends

The house is unusually quiet.  Christmas vacation is over.  The kids are back at school. The baby is sleeping.  My parents were here for a week and left last night.  I started to take down Christmas decorations after our Epiphany celebration yesterday.  I have nothing on the calendar until the 2:45 school pick up and then tennis lessons, my first class, and picking up the older boys after Mock Trial in the evening.  Back to business.

My parents flew out of LAX last night, which is about 65 miles from our house. The drive can take anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to more than two hours depending on traffic. I thought about sending my folks on the shuttle bus, but since their flight was late enough that I could leave all the kids with Dad, I drove them into town to extend our visit a little longer.  Traffic was moving, and the drive home was almost too short. Just over an hour of near silence in the dark was relaxing, even if I did have to keep part of my brain attentive to traffic.  I now have done this drive enough that I can almost go on auto pilot. As I crested the top of the hill nicknamed "the grade" and was greeted with the expansive view of Camarillo at nighttime, a sense of both glory and dismay washed over me.  All the lights are beautiful as they sparkle in the valley, but all the lights! 

That valley is home and not home.  In another six or seven months we will be moving again, not closer to family and friends who are almost family as we had hoped, but farther away.  We'll be staying in California and moving three hours south to the San Diego area.  No orders are in hand yet, but that's the word being passed around.  More on that when we have something in writing.

For my literature class on Monday night, I read Eliot's "Journey of the Magi" and Yeats' "The Magi." Both poems allude to the complexity of emotions the Wise Men might have felt when coming before a baby in a stable who was supposed to be a great king and whom they were supposed to condemn to death through Herod. Glory and dismay.

Our feast for Epiphany was a bit subdued since we had to go to the airport.  Supper was chili, but for accompaniment, I made Rosca de Reyes from a recipe a Spanish friend gave me when we lived in Illinois. It is kind of a complicated recipe, but this batch turned out well - it's more like a sweet egg bread with a sugary topping that includes candied citrus peel than a cake. Some of my peels were sweet, others - perhaps they had too much of the pith or weren't ripe fruits - were still slightly bitter.  Those few bites threatened to overshadow the deliciousness. Chiaroscuro is everywhere.

 

Now for a brief photographic record of our past weeks.  How quickly the vacation days flew by after the long days of anticipation! 

Tamale fest fun.  I love tamales!!

HS band concert

Frugal family fun at the hardware store instead of a tree farm.

Elementary Christmas musical. Questionable Silent
Night rap and interminable pre-school number, otherwise better than
last year. Son number 4 had a solo.

Son number 3's gift to Baby

The exchange of sibling gifts before Midnight Mass

The Midnight Mass crowd

Christmas morning procession with all the nativity sets' Infant Jesuses.

Baby's first Christmas Joy

Holding it together

Last week was the week of celebrating saints, cheerfully bedecking the halls, lighting candles, smelling butter and sugar baking into deliciousness. . .

This is the week of AHHHHHHH! Nine days until Christmas! Three days left of the kids being in school!  Too much to do!  And where to begin! 

Deep breaths. One thing at a time. Reminding myself that what gets done, gets done; what doesn't, doesn't, and life goes on . . .

All is well for today. But as we put these ornaments up with little faces that have changed so much in a year or ten, I'm having to struggle to put off thinking about the looming heartbreak of changes ahead.  Such a bittersweet time. 

Prepare the way

Ahh, Advent!  Already! At last!

I love this time of year.  It's cozy and cheerful, especially since we have received some much needed rain. Hurrah for rain!  Even saw a brilliant rainbow yesterday morning - what was old hat in Guam is cause for parking lot confusion here. Everyone was stopping and getting out of their cars in the drizzle to take a photo.  It's amazing how quickly the hillsides take on a greenish tinge.
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Some other updates:

The Thanksgiving weekend holiday went smoothly. Dinner was delicious and the company low key. Four young sailors came over to my brother- and sister-in-laws and my boys took them paddle boarding and surfing. It was the first time one of them had seen the ocean. One of them said as he was leaving that his friends had given him a hard time about going to the CO's for dinner, but he was going to let them know what a great time he had in the water.

The next day we went to Fresno for the state cross country meet. Two kids stayed with the in laws for the Notre Dame- USC game. I had been fretting about which two, but in the end everyone made peace and was happy about where they were going.  Kids 4 and 5 stayed behind and the rest went with us. We stayed with our old neighbors and had a great dinner of left overs, homemade enchiladas, and good wine.  Their sons were hospitable, and their son's friends, all freshman home from college, showed up with 4 extra TV screens and six gaming consoles to play video games. Hilarious.

The meet was a success - oldest son ran well and the team placed 7th, much higher than they expected. The winners were crazy fast. California has some of the fastest high school runners in the nation. I'd much rather tailgate at a high school cross country meet than a college football game.

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First Sunday of Advent was a flurry of unpacking looking for the wreath.  No Black Friday shopping - no big requests this year and I don't want to get more stuff just to get stuff. Kids will probably get clothes this year.  My gift to my husband, who is out of town for a couple weeks, -- car repairs!  His clunky Toyota needed some major work. Hoping to keep it limping along until we move again.
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Just finished helping out with an Advent workshop for our M.O.M.S. group (Making Our Mothering Significant).  A crafty, snacky morning with four tables of crafts for St. Nicholas, Immaculate Conception, St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe, and St. Lucy.  The table decor included a statue of each saint and an appropriately colored candle and a snack.  I helped put together a CD with music (found some good downloads on Noisetrade) and a pamphlet with blessings and links to sites with more ideas to celebrate Advent. So much on the internet!

But what things do we really do during Advent?
-Advent Calendar - preferably chocolate. Lego and Playmobil were biggest hits ever.
- Jesse tree for about 2 weeks
-Advent wreath with prayer "Jesus Christ is the light of the world" "Come, Lord Jesus, Come."
-St. Nicholas day shoes filled with candy coins, real coins, a candy cane, and a small gift (this year: nice pens!)
-OLG Mexican food for supper. Used to do a fiesta with a pro-life prayer group many moves ago.
- Mass for the Immaculate Conception
- Decorate tree on Gaudete Sunday
- Travelling Mary and Joseph from Nativity set for Las Posadas week before Christmas.  Baby Jesus doesn't show up in nativity sets until Christmas morning. Kids sing happy birthday to Jesus before opening presents.  Then the 3 Kings travel around the house until Epiphany.
- We have had a generic elf on the shelf for the past 3 years, but a friend sent me the link to have the 3 kings stationed around the house looking for Jesus. (http://www.catholicinspired.com/2013/11/wisemen-adventures-again-this-year-sooo.html)
- Crafts, cookies, cards, concerts, shopping - all the traditional stuff and some holiday events with work and school.  Sometimes we do gingerbread houses some years with friends or cousins.

Each year is a little different.  I am not a great crafter, but I like making things at this time of year. But I'm welcoming the time to spend reflecting also. After the busy fall, Advent provides a much needed moment to restore focus to things of the heart and soul and to renew my attentiveness to prayer and liturgy.

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Taking an online class to learn how to teach online classes. I'm a learning some useful tricks, but can't say I'm convinced that online or even flipped classes should replace traditional in class learning - or instruction at home.  There's just no room for the unexpected, impromptu moments and conversations when lasting learning takes place.  But I can see online learning being useful in many cases, and I am seeing how an active, involved instructor can make a class work.  As I've been helping my senior with some essays, I'm wishing I had time to get established in a writing tutor job.  But by the time I could find some clients, it will be about time to move again.

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Moving!  Getting anxious for a word. People around school and church are asking. Don't ask, people! I still have at least six months here! Don't drop me yet!  We should know soon what our future holds.

 So many mixed emotions about this life.
It helps develop resiliency, the latest trendy word in child development talk.  And we've had some great adventures.  But we leave behind pieces of our broken hearts everywhere we go.

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I do have some anticipation for a different house.  Would like to let go of my frugal ways enough to shed some old ugly stuff we haul around because it's useful and buy some new things because they are beautiful -- for instance, the kitchen table.  The dishes. Some new art and home decor. A new couch and chair.  My latest - rather, recurrent --- mental struggle is between minimizing clutter and cost and maximizing comfort and loveliness.

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Finally, what I've been reading: I've gone back to 19th century England to meet Phineas Finn in Anthony Trollope's book of that name. Like Dickens, Trollope is a master at creating interesting characters and capturing the era.  The politics are a little out of my ken, but I'm fascinated by the contemporary themes in the depictions of marital relationships.

I'm reading Redwall outloud with the three youngers. The 10 year old loves it. The 8 year old falls asleep.  It's entertaining to read, but long, and I don't see myself reading too many books in the series.

And I've started the biography of my grandfather that my aunt wrote and self-published. She worked on it for years. Lots of pictures and history included.  I'm loving it and will write more about it soon.

What am I thinking?!

It's Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving and here I am sitting at the computer. Woman, what are you thinking!  Shhh... the baby is sleeping, the kids and husband are off at the aunt and uncle's.  They are cooking the first of three turkeys (the balutan turkey), cleaning, and surfing in between all that.  So I have some stolen moments for contemplation...

Dinner tomorrow will be at the cousins' house with some sailors who aren't going to their own homes and some friends.  We are bringing sides, which are started, and pies, and a second turkey, which will be cooked in the morning.  I've baked some sweet potatoes, made the cranberry relish and sauce, and will make Gonga's yeast rolls in the morning.  I might be making corn pudding, but I think my sister-in-law wants to do it, and I'm happy to oblige.  Tonight, after we serve Thanksgiving dinner for homeless and old people at church, we'll make pumpkin, apple, and one other pie - maybe Jefferson Davis, maybe Shoofly, maybe sugar cream... something different.

The day after Thanksgiving, we're going to Fresno for the state cross country meet.  My oldest son's team is now one of the top 25 Division 5 CC teams in the large state of California.  That is a good place to be - no stress for the championship race Saturday morning, other than my son really wants a PR.

He also PR'd on his latest SAT. He took it once back in January, and did well, but the idea was that that was his practice test.  This time he scored an 800 in the reading section and a 700 in math, even though he did little in the way of preparation. I'm tickled pink for him. Where else can I brag but on my own little blog?

Other points of pride - school conferences went well. I have been worried about the academic achievements of my 3 youngers, but their teachers all assert that they are doing fine, and all three were complemented for being kind to children who are...not as easy to get along with as others.  My youngest (save the baby), who did awful on her Iowa tests, was praised by her teacher for being a friend to all in a class that has a few cliques already in third grade.  So as long as she continues to be a compassionate little person, I will gladly overlook her not scoring highly on her quantitative assessments.

I am also pleased to report that my oldest daughter did great in volleyball - her team pulled together to get 2nd in their tournament.  Her science fair project is coming along, and she has been a great babysitter lately - other than the night she let Baby gnaw a carrot.  A piece of carrot lodged in Baby's throat and she scared everyone with her gagging, but she hacked it up.  So babysitting class is in order.  Our fourth son, who also doesn't love academics, has a starring role in the upcoming Christmas play. Apparently, he can sing and dance - gifts he didn't receive from his parents.  And one of the pre-school moms came up to me the other day to tell me how kind he was to her little boy - the fifth graders buddy up with Pre-K for activities like a Thanksgiving program.  My kid apparently helped serve and take care of this little 4 year old. So even though I'm constantly after him to clean up after himself, to stay off the computer, and to settle down and do his homework, some lessons are sticking with him.

Sons number 2 and 3 also have earned praises - they are class presidents, their grades are good, and they both stuck with sports that they didn't love, but participated in because they love being a part of something.  And they have integrated well into their school in this second year.  All three high school boys - all three very different in personality - were invited to a birthday party last weekend with a 40's theme. They had to dress up and use good manners. The birthday girls' parents hired a dance instructor to teach swing dancing.  It sounded like so much fun, I wish I could have gone.

So this is my thankfulness post.  The kids are doing great, praise the Lord.  Not that I don't still lie awake at night worrying - about them going away to college, about the "girlfriend," about their progress, about their happiness, especially as we anticipate moving again in the summer.  One of the kids was complaining that we have favorites because someone received some special treatment, and I reminded him that love doesn't divide - it only multiples. But as love multiplies, so do the potential swords that can pierce your heart.   Last night we watched "Into the Wild," and I lay away thinking about how I would feel if one of my kids wanted to run off into the wilderness and live alone.  We need each other, I would plead. I need you.  I want all my chicks around me.

I worry that this itinerant life will teach them to resent staying anywhere for any length of time. We used to go to see family for holidays like Thanksgiving, but the longer we live far away, the less I even consider it as a possibility.  My aunt just sent 10 copies of the book she wrote about my grandfather (one for each of us and an extra).  It's a beautiful book, and an interesting read, I think. I read bits about our ancestors in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars aloud to the kids last weekend in the car, hoping to inspire them to feel connected to their extended family and their own family history.   Perhaps if they feel connected to a bigger family picture, they will make the effort in their grown -up years to come back to visit often.

And so even though I am taking a little break in preparations for tomorrow right now, I'm hopeful that our small celebrations will help the kids feel like they belong somewhere together.  On Sunday we'll revive more traditions when we'll pull out our Advent wreath and Jesse tree and set shoes out next week for St. Nicholas.  I'm looking forward to Advent this year - everything - house and soul  - seems to be crying out for a good clean sweep and a renewed focus on essentials after a very busy fall winds down.  I'm grateful I have time to take a moment to refocus on gratitude:  the kids are doing fine, I'm doing fine, my husband is fine, we've got plenty to eat and drink and wear and plenty to be proud of.  We live in a beautiful place, we have friends and family who love us, we have abundant opportunities for learning and admiring beautiful things.  It's a good life.

On teaching and learning

I have posted my grades for my composition and service learning classes.  Only one student contacted me to say he was upset about his grade, but this was a student who missed 3 classes out of 10 to go on field exercises. I made the mistake of allowing him to continue the course without seeing much of his work.  He did turn in almost all of the assignments when he returned, but they were not collegiate work.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this student has a learning disability of some sort. My mistake was not encouraging him to drop the course when he told me about his planned absence.

My other "lessons learned" from the semester: You can't cover 16 weeks of material in 10 weeks, even if the hours in class are supposed to be equivalent (5 hour classes - we actually met for 3 -3.5, and then they were sent home with assignments to make up for the extra hour or two of class).  These students needed more help with the basics - grammar, sentence construction, paragraphing. I also should have assigned more short writing assignments earlier in the term to assess what they needed instead of backloading the course. Live and learn.

Unfortunately, "live and learn" with my children doesn't work so well.  My younger kids just received their Iowa Test scores.  When my older kids took standardized tests, they usually scored in the 95-99th percentile.  My youngers are still at the top side of average, but about 10-20 percentiles lower.  And the youngest was below average in math.  Is this because I didn't give them the attention they needed when they were younger? Or is it a natural aptitude issue?  My youngest is the most social of all my children. She is very athletic, very outgoing, and very self-confident, but she isn't at all interested in reading or doing math facts, and regularly falls asleep when I read aloud at night, which I've been trying to do more lately (working through Redwall, which 3 out of 4 listeners recommend). The older kids loved books.  Did I do something wrong with her?

Now with this new baby, I have the chance to put to use all of those "lessons learned" from the past years.  I will read every day to this child and play with math manipulatives! She will eat a well rounded diet low in sugar!  She will only play with handmade wooden toys and Waldorf dolls! (I bought her a Nicki baby before she was born...) We will find a balance between attachment parenting and Ferberizing!

Uh oh, she has already had bites of pumpkin pie and frosted Cheerios and whipped cream.  Her siblings are dying to give her bites of donuts and ice cream.  One sister gave her a lick of lollipop.

And several days have slipped by without any reading.  All she wants to do is eat her books, and we had a busy weekend.

And I'm not sure I can justify buying her a $100 doll for Christmas when she is going to like wrapping paper better than anything. I've had to fish bits of paper out of her chipmunk cheeks more than once. And lately she wants to nurse all night long. . .

I doubt my ability to be a better parent just because I have experience.  My experience with other children has taught me only that every child is different.  I still have to learn what this child needs.  She is beginning to show her will - I am sure she will let me know what she wants! Will she be a scholar or social or both?  Experience has taught me I can't make her into whom I think she should be.  I have to start at the beginning again and get to know and love her and have the discipline and desire to meet her needs, which probably aren't so much organic playthings, as much as love and dedication.

The reading this Sunday was the parable of the talents.  To whom much is given, much is expected.  We certainly have been given much.  But in my older age, I look more for the safe answer - I'm more likely to be the guy who buries his money than the guy who invests and makes double, especially in my middle age.  A friend and I were sharing stories of our twenties and I was trying to remember what possessed me to pack up and take two toddlers and go back to graduate school while my husband was on deployment. How did I make that decision? It was easier to take risks because I didn't know how hard it was going to be. And to be honest, I don't remember it being that hard.  Now I think too much about the difficulties of packing everyone up. I dread changing schools with the kids again.  I'm taking an online class about teaching online classes and finding it a challenge. Everything seems harder than it used to be.  Is this perspective the wisdom of experience or the fear of tribulation?

Obviously the latter. These fears are proof my faith is weak when it is put on trial.  Experience should have taught me that God provides. But still I think I must rely on my own knowledge and effort.  Even teaching this class - again and again the lesson is that good teaching isn't about dumping content into these students, but about responding to their needs. Trying to find the right books and essays and exercises isn't as important as trying to help these students put their thoughts into precise words and intelligible form.

As Advent nears, I know that my goal should be trying to clean up my soul, to let go of anxieties and selfishness that prevent me from trusting God and loving others.  The days are growing shorter in hours and in number.  I catch myself squinting as I think of my to-do lists and tell myself "Relax your face!" That's what my coach used to yell when I would squint while running.  When I heard him, I would consciously relax my eyes.  Then my stride would lengthen and my hands unclench.  As the tension of fighting pain slipped away, so would pain, and I would run faster and easier.  Likewise, when I let go of my will to do the right thing and just pay attention to what is in front of me, tension slips away. I can actually get something done instead of fretting about it.  Instead of wrestling with trying to predict God's will - how can I possibly know what God's will is? - I need to do what is in front of me, and stop trying to find the right/best thing.  Love what must be done, instead of trying to predict or guess what is the best thing to do. Use the talents instead of burying them out of fear of losing them.

And now I must wash the dishes because the pile in front of me grows.  I will wash the dishes out of love, I will, I will, because my family loves when they can get a drink out of the sink without maneuvering a stack of pots and the counters are clean.

Minute reviews

I heard a little blurb about this new video from OK Go on the radio a couple days ago.

These guys make me happy.  Watch the ending.

Since the video was filmed in Japan, I am reminded that I finished Haruki Murakami's Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.  I mentioned that I was finding it a bit slow, but I stuck with it and was pleasantly surprised.  Instead of being a novel about a rather lackluster, whiny character drawn toward suicide, (Tsukuru Tazaki, whose name, unlike that of his friends, does not have a color word in it), it was a novel about forgiveness and reconciliation.  Tsukuru finds himself abandoned by his best friends when he is in college, but as a nearly middle-aged adult, he starts to fall in love and realizes he cannot love this woman until he makes peace with the four friends he loved in high school who betrayed him.  So he goes in search of them.  He finds out why they cut him off, and what they are doing now.  And by reconnecting, he is healed from the wound that had scarred his heart and prevented him from being generous with love.  It is a restrained novel, not surprising from a Japanese author, but it is full of deep emotion.  I will be looking for more books by Haruki Murakami the next time I go to the library.

How to make regular school more like home school

Our elementary school is undergoing a credentialing review and just issued a survey for parents to complete.  I spent some time crafting this response to the last question, "What can our school do to improve its academic excellence?" so I thought I would share it here, partially so I remember what to look for the next time we look at schools:

"I am always a fan of encouraging more reading and writing from students.  Language arts seems relegated to workbook pages - perhaps each quarter students should be required to read a classic or challenging for their ability book and do a project/write about it.  Also, I thought outdoor school and CIMI were great programs for the middle schoolers - maybe the school could host a science day with experiment stations or do something local like going to the beach to study tide pools or going to hills to study local plants and animals for the younger kids to get them engaged in learning about and studying their local ecosystems.  A last recommendation for middle schoolers would be to have either a career day or career "chats" with parents/business people/scientists/engineers/local artists/writers/lawyers/government employees/ etc, so that the students can get interested in a variety of career options/see how their studies will help them in the future/motivate them to work hard in high school and look for opportunities to be volunteers, interns, or entrepreneurs themselves as teenagers."

That last bit is because as my senior applies to colleges, I'm realizing how little he knows about what kinds of jobs are out there, and I'm seeing how much colleges value a little real world experience - a summer job, a project selling something or providing a service (lawn mowing), regular and consistent volunteer commitments.  And those things have value in themselves for teaching teenagers about responsibility and managing money. (It's been a good experience to have our teenagers pay for many of their activities and stuff out of their lawn mowing/job money.  We pay for school related expenses; they pay for fun.  Unfortunately their lawn mowing money dried up here, and our second son didn't find a job this summer, but he didn't try very hard in between his mission trip, family vacation and football practice.  So his fun has mostly been free stuff - beach day, playing his guitar or cards with friends, or having a friend over for a movie here instead of going to the theater, when he has time after schoolwork, football and family stuff.)

Really, I think school would be better if it were more like home school - groups of students small enough that individual preferences, strengths, and weaknesses can be addressed, opportunities to do lots of hands-on and experiential learning like going to museums and concerts and battlefields and oceanfronts.

The advantage of school over home school is the concentration that students and teachers apply at school - my kids seem to have fewer distractions at school than at home. They also seem to do better with a solid routine and spelled-out expectations that I had a hard time providing at home. My kids also work harder when they are participating in programs like Academic Challenge Bowl and essay contests and just in-class competition in general.  My nagging them at home was not an encouragement to do well.

This credential is from the Catholic schools association. I was happy to commend our school for its Catholic identity which shines because of weekly mass, three times a day or more daily prayer (morning, noon, and before they leave for the day, plus sometimes additional prayers in the classrooms), art and statues in the classrooms and building that celebrate Catholic saints and wisdom, and celebration of holy days and Catholic traditions. Religion class and opportunities to receive the sacraments and encouragement to be active in the parish and community were additional ways that our school exudes its Catholic identity.  And while the teachers are human and some are better than others, for the most part the teachers seem to role model an active, loving practice of their faith.  I've been very happy with our little school, other than some minor quibbles - mostly about fundraising and the occasional questionable choice about things like music that the kids dance to at the Fall Festival. Nothing overtly scandalous, just mediocre and thoroughly secular.  The school has a mix of parents who choose it for its Catholic identity and those who choose it because it is academically rigorous and safe. I wish there were more at the school for the first reason, but ideally Catholic schools would work on the hearts of the parents who aren't religious, in addition to the kids.

So we'll be continuing to send the kids to school at our next duty station, about which we should be finding out soon. I'm beginning to get a little twitchy - time to either move or to find out we are staying so that I can commit to activities and relationships.  In a new location, I always begin with a desire to jump in and make connections and form friendships, but as the tour goes on, I begin to feel myself pulling away, even at this early stage.  I don't feel a need to exert myself to sell raffle tickets like I did last year. I haven't joined any new committees or jumped up for volunteer jobs, partly because of the new baby, partly because I have enough volunteer jobs, and partly because I don't need to use those opportunities as avenues to meet more people. I'm sure I'll be back at it next fall. A friend in the DC area just emailed me about deadlines for choice schools and magnet programs - already thinking ahead to next fall as the first quarter finishes up.  DC is a potential next stop for us, but if we happen to stay in a mild to tropical clime, I wouldn't complain... I just don't particularly want the desert outpost that is going to get assigned to someone in my husband's peer group - or him.  Then again, I've always been pleasantly surprised by how much we end up liking our duty stations, so we may find something or someone to love even in a remote oven.